Maduro as hell

The United States’ capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro raises issues for us and other US allies.

To start, we need to get a few things straight, including the point that the operation was a kidnapping.

Maduro is no martyr, either.

Let’s not worry too much about whether he was a legitimate president. We, the US and many other countries in the West and Latin America did not accept his alleged electoral wins in 2019 and 2024. It is thus an irony that US President Donald Trump seems prepared to deal with what is left of Maduro’s regime, but he is doing just that.

Nor should we dwell on how much of a crook Maduro is. He is one. Moreover, ‘Chavismo’, the populist political ideology named after his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, led to economic misery for most Venezuelans and the emigration of millions.

Corruption by Latin American dictators and juntas—and ill-treatment of their opposition—is hardly new. Moreover, many such rulers have had the support the US.

Franklin Roosevelt’s reported line in 1939 about Anastasio Somoza, the president of Nicaragua—‘Somoza may be a sonofabitch, but he’s our sonofabitch’—still resonates.

And the charge that Maduro was involved in the drug trade, while likely on the money, does not sit comfortably alongside Trump’s 1 December pardon of a former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had been imprisoned in the US for drug trafficking.

But there are bigger issues at play.

There is the oil question. Views are mixed. Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves, and the US’s actions may disrupt Venezuelan oil supplies to China. But then Venezuela supplies only 4 percent of China’s crude oil.

Moreover, the challenges and costs for US companies in—as suggested by Trump—rebuilding Venezuela’s worn-out oil infrastructure would be severe and protracted. This would be the case even when dealing with a cooperative Venezuelan regime, which the companies cannot be sure of having.

Second, Trump is aware of the costs of US military action in Latin America, and of the concerns of his MAGA base about such action.

However, Maduro was captured after months of publicity about the destruction of Venezuelan vessels allegedly smuggling drugs. US security concerns about the western hemisphere were central to the November US National Security Strategy.

These developments and veiled US threats about Colombia and even Mexico, and less veiled ones about Cuba, inevitably raise old fears of US actions against, and exploitation of, its southern neighbours.

There is no love lost in most of Latin America for Maduro. But the spectre of American adventurism is also unattractive.

For US allies such as Australia, it is no asset to have an undisciplined American administration tied down by its differences in the western hemisphere when it should be focussing elsewhere.

Third, the western hemisphere is about not just Latin America and the Caribbean but also Canada and Greenland.

While further economic bullying is on the cards, Trump’s mutterings about Canada are unlikely to lead to a military takeover. Realistically, how could they?

Incredible as it may seem, Trump’s designs on Greenland are of more immediate concern. Administration comments suggest that the acquisition of the island remains a serious US policy objective.

Greenland is part of Denmark. Denmark is a NATO member. Greenland’s seizure would mean the end of NATO. How would Australia react? Would it side with NATO as a matter of principle? Where would such action leave our own alliance?

The fourth issue is that, to the degree that ethics still have a role in international dealings, by kidnapping Maduro the US has ceded another chunk of the high ground.

Comments by Secretary of State Marco Rubio—‘This is the western hemisphere, this is where we live, and we are not going to let the western hemisphere be a base of operations for adversaries, competitors and rivals of the United States’—are likely to lead to a Russian rejoinder that this was Russia’s problem with Ukraine and NATO. China could point to the US’s $11 billion arms sale to Taiwan in December and to more besides.

A final linked issue is that Trump’s emphasis on the priority of the western hemisphere in US strategic policy again raises the spheres-of-influence question.

At bedrock, this question is whether in return for untrammelled control of its own region, the US would be prepared to cede influence elsewhere. This process could involve leaving it largely to the Russians and Western Europeans to sort things out over Ukraine. It would mean giving ground to China in the Indo-Pacific. For Russia or China, a good swap. For the rest of us, unattractive.

This article was published by The Strategist.